“Like you didn’t have enough to do. You do too much as it is.”
“I don’t mind. I kind of like it.”
“And my name’s not on the ownership papers?”
“Catherine Savage appears nowhere. We used a straw man for the contract and closing. Deed was transferred into the name of the corporation I had set up. That’s untraceable back to you.”
“I wish I could have changed my name again, just in case he’s on the lookout for it.”
“That would’ve been nice except the cover story he built for you, the same one we used to appease the IRS, has you as Catherine Savage. It’s complicated enough without adding another layer to it. Geez, the death certificate we had made up for your ‘late’ husband was hell to get.”
“I know.” She sighed heavily.
He glanced over at her. “Charlottesville, Virginia, home to lots of rich and famous, I hear. Is that why you picked it? Private, you can live like a hermit, and nobody’ll care?”
“That was one of two reasons.”
“And the other?”
“My mother was born here,” LuAnn said, her voice dropping a notch as she delicately traced the hem of her skirt. “She was happy here, at least she told me she was. And she wasn’t rich either.” She fell silent, her eyes staring off. She jolted back and looked at Charlie, her face reddening slightly. “Maybe some of that happiness will rub off on us, what do you think?”
“I think so long as I’m with you and this little one,” he said, gently stroking Lisa’s cheek, “I’m a happy man.”
“She’s all enrolled in the private school?”
Charlie nodded. “St. Anne’s-Belfield. Pretty exclusive, low student-to-teacher ratio. But, hell, Lisa’s educational qualifications are outstanding. She speaks multiple languages, been all over the world. Already done things most adults will never do their whole life.”
“I don’t know, maybe I should have hired a private tutor.”
“Come on, LuAnn, she’s been doing that ever since she could walk. She needs to be around other kids. It’ll be good for her. It’ll be good for you too. You know what they say about time away.”
She suddenly smiled at him slyly. “Are you feeling claustrophobic with us, Charlie?”
“You bet I am. I’m gonna start staying out late. Might even take up some hobbies like golf or something.” He grinned at LuAnn to show her he was only joking.
“It’s been a good ten years, hasn’t it?” Her voice was touched with anxiety.
“Wouldn’t trade ’em for anything,” he said.
Let’s hope the next ten are just as good, LuAnn said to herself. She laid her head against his shoulder. When she had stared out at the New York skyline all those years ago, she had been brimming with excitement, with the potential of all the good she could do with the money. She had promised herself that she would and she had fulfilled that promise. Personally, however, those wonderful dreams had not been met. The last ten years had only been good to her if you defined good as constantly on the move, fearful of discovery, having pangs of guilt every time she bought something because of how she had come by the money. She had always heard that the incredibly rich were never really happy, for a variety of reasons. Growing up in poverty LuAnn had never believed that, she simply took it to be a ruse of the wealthy. Now, she knew it to be true, at least in her own case.
As the limo drove on, she closed her eyes and tried to rest. She would need it. Her “second” new life was about to commence.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Thomas Donovan sat staring at his computer screen in the frenetic news room of the Washington Tribune. Journalistic awards from a number of distinguished organizations dotted the walls and shelves of his cluttered cubicle, including a Pulitzer he had won before he was thirty. Donovan was now in his early fifties but still possessed the drive and fervor of his youth. Like most investigative journalists, he could dish out a strong dose of cynicism about the workings of the real world, if only because he had seen the worst of it. What he was working on now was a story the substance of which disgusted him.